Bristol is great. But sometimes it’s shit. In the spirit of Shit London, here are a few things that won’t be making it into the next viral blog celebrating how we love street art and invented chocolate.
1) The former Royal Mail sorting office, Cattle Market Road
Quite possibly the worst view when arriving by train into any city anywhere. Somebody please knock it down.
2) The buses
Hearing a good word about First is as rare as a bus arriving on time. Yesterday, the number 54 changed into the 2. Just like that.
3) Graffiti and overflowing bins
Two in one on Johnny Ball Lane. Tagging is prolific in some areas of Bristol, and here it’s complemented by uncollected black sacks.
4) The Broadmead sail
Is it a sail? Nobody knows. But there surely could be smaller rain shelters. A similar wooden sail used to be in the centre. That was also a bit shit.
5) Shit cycle lanes
There is a cycle lane on Coronation Road with a tree in the middle of it. This one spits you straight out onto St James Barton roundabout.
What else can be called Shit Bristol? Let us know in the comments below.
A ray of sunshine as always…
The 1,500,000 sq ft of empty office space in the city centre, largely caused by the building splurge at temple meads. This has created:
a. a ghost town in the centre with strings of entirely or mostly empty office blocks along the centre and the harbour front
b. a huge number of workers at Temple Meads in a development with almost no retail, which workers drive to, park in underground car parks and then leave without hardly setting foot outside
The shittest thing in Bristol for me is quite literally the shit. Dog shit. It’s everywhere where I live in Montpelier. Sort it out Bristol!
Shit shaped and Bristol fashion!
May I respectfully submit number 6: Gangs of seagulls.
Shooting fish in a barrel.
I like this, because after having grown up in Luton, lived in Manchester and London, I know that Bristol by far pisses on any other city I’ve lived in.
so airing gripes doesn’t feel like pissing moodily in the wind, as there are so many genuinely positive things going on
I’m gonna add though, train stations with one train an hour!! Bedminster station SUCKS!!!
Bedminster & Parson St too. And next to nothing on Sundays. The least they could do is make them request stops.
Very much a new addition to the list of shit things about Bristol this, but I definitely think that George Ferguson’s red trousers should be on the there. What a pr*ck.
And his opinions are also a pile of s**t. He should be a PR guru, not the mayor of a respectable city.
The facade of the BRI on Upper Maudlin Street is the ugliest building I’ve ever seen anywhere. A huge expanse of dirty grey and black concrete.
Finally it’s going to get a cover-up in the next few years.
I’m not sure the legendary cycle path on Coronation Road still exists – I think the signage and markings might have been removed. It certainly ticked all the boxes of crumbling surface, badly routed round bus stops and trees.
they tarmacked it, removing the well worn markings, and resurfaced it so thinly, that it’s no less bumpy and shite. it’s still a cycle path, but you just wouldn’t know
Wasn’t the bike lane put in to do the following:
1) Stop the idiots taking up the road because they thought they owned the road. Causing massive amounts of congestion on a major road
2) Stop the idiots nearly killing pedestrians because they thought they owned the pavement. Causing mayhem, pain, and I believe even death.
1. Broadmead, all of it, mostly because of the vast number of loud, chain-smoking chavs it attracts.
2. Every building that survived the blitz, only to be torn down later by unscrupulous developers, and allowed by inept council planners. See – the original entrance to the Old Vic Theatre, and the edwardian(?) hotel that was demolished to build Broad Quay House, that utter turd of a building gracing the entrance to Bristol’s Harbourside.
3. Multi-story car parks, wasting valuable space in the city centre, when other cities build them underground.
4. Derelict council buildings on the west side of Castle Park.
Fish in a barrel indeed…
You mean the cooperative building? Yes it did look rather nice, not a hotel though.
The grey wind tunnel which is Cabot Circus where no sunshine is allowed to fall.
The entire noughties harbourside development, from Oceana right along to Grain Barge. Ming.
I lived in Luton too… Mostly the shittest bits of Bristol are a cake walk in comparison. However, in the deepest ghettos of Luton, where even the jihadists fear to tread, you’d struggle to find a bus driver with poorer manners than your average Briz Busman. Is being a dick part of the job description? If you hate humanity, don’t get a job working with the public you douche bags.
Hi Martin, I think you missed “the spirit of Shit London”. It’s more about having a laugh at funny/crap things about your city, not whinging about the buses. Not saying it’s not worth posting about shit things in Bristol, but it’s not the same thing without the humour/irony. Cheers
Howabout greenie, middle class idiots who colonise the city and pretend that it’s some extension of Hoxton, fail to notice that it builds planes for a living, and tell proper Bristolians that we can’t have new sports stadiums?
Hahaha! Who on earth is Sam Hobson?!
He is hilarious! Thank goodness he is alive and able to give such valuable feedback on other people’s work – what would the world be without him and his insights! I can’t wait to read anything Sam Hobson writes and let him know whether he has captured the spirit of things correctly!
Sam Hobson, have I captured the spirit of your post? or is it just not the same?